GE Posts Gain Despite Weak NBC

NBC was not among the contributors to General Electric’s 9% boost in net profits for the year, which reached $4.3 billion (or $4.85 a share), up from $3.94 billion ($4.36). Revenue for the year ended Dec. 31 grew 7% to $58.4 billion from $54.6 billion. Revenue for the fourth quarter grew 6% to $17.2 billion from $16.2 billion. Quarterly profits climbed 6% as well to $1.24 billion ($1.42) from $1.17 billion ($1.30).

According to Jeffrey Logsdon, an analyst with Seidler, Amdec Securities, “NBC already had ratings problems and clearly the war has brought a significant disruption in programming, which means lost advertising revenue that can’t be recovered.”